drodge said: I agree that by adding a third-party start button the OS is at least useable and basically the same as Windows 7. Yes, it adds bitlocker, but you use Truecrypt for free. Honestly, I don't see a single thing about windows 8 that's worth paying 2 cents to upgrade, much less $30. I had tried the Beta a while ago, and wasn't that impressed. I got in on the $15 about a month ago and did it basically to see if they added anything worthwhile after the beta - they didn't. Honestly, I wouldn't do an upgrade from if it were free at this point. If you haven't tried it, you aren't missing a thing.

I have been living computers in my life for many years, and I agree with all that is me. Microsoft produces a garbage desktop OS about every other one, and this is the current garbage OS.

Everyone wait for the next OS. If you have a tablet PC, buy Windows 8. If you don't, keep Windows 7. That is all. It is the most annoying fanboi OS I have ever seen for someone who uses a mouse or touchpad to navigate. It would be cool if I had a tablet PC, but not with a desktop or laptop PC. Why should we have to swoosh in random corners of the screen to get the Start Menu? What the hell was wrong with the Start Menu, Applications, or anything else? It took me a few minutes to even find the Control Panel. That is worse than Mac OS X could ever dream of being. It is not a coincidence that every distribution of Linux to ever exist in the past 15 years uses a "Start Menu" in the lower left corner.

jnheinz

Senior Member - 1K

posted: Jan. 28, 2013 @ 12:29a

secstate said: shunja said:

No, sir/madam, XP is perfect. I may upgrade one of my Windows Vista PCs, though.

While Windows 8 doesn't do much for me, XP is FAR from perfect.

I have bought one copy of Win 8 and I was underwhelmed. I don't hate it but it really does nothing for me and gets in the way of my work and before you tell me oh you don't like change, in the dozen+ physical and virtual machines I run currently just in my study at home, I have various Linuxes (Scientific Linux--RHEL clone, Ubuntu, Debian. Mint) running Gnome 2, XFCE, KDE and Cinnamon desktop environments, Ubuntu Server with no GUI, a Mac with OS X as well as Win 7 and, yes, one XP box still that I am just too lazy to upgrade. Funny thing is that I purchased several new machines last year and so I put in for more Win 8 upgrades and never purchased them after the first one. Each week I get another almost pathetic reminder e-mail from MS asking me why I haven't upgraded. At this point it is not even worth the $15 upgrade to me.

I am not hating on Win 8 as I think it was a bold move by MS that in the end might be a big win for them though I do think the current execution is flawed and it is hard to tell whether the promises it makes will pan out (e.g., touch on desktops and laptops, unified environment across devices). It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.

Edit: I will add that, though it has its own flaws, I do prefer the Linux approach of separating the desktop environment from the underlying OS. It is nice to be able to chose your poison GUI-wise while still being able to run whatever the latest and greatest OS is.

Unfortunately, we are among the minority of comprehending this principle of separation of the GUI from the OS. Another fatal concept is bringing the concept of the word "Apps" into our world. They are joining the bandwagon. Everyone thinks they need to go check the App Market and download Apps, like it's a damn cell phone. What ever happened to getting my applications from the Internet and using Google? Microsoft is working to further their legacy and monopoly with this OS.

Windows XP is not the perfect operating system, nor is Windows 7. An operating system, in my world, is perfect if you can sustain an uptime of a year and have perfectly stable drivers. In which case, certain distributions of Linux that I also run in VM's are the only possible qualifiers of that title.

yesidonoitall

Mandatory 20%

posted: Jan. 28, 2013 @ 12:54a

jnheinz said: drodge said: I agree that by adding a third-party start button the OS is at least useable and basically the same as Windows 7. Yes, it adds bitlocker, but you use Truecrypt for free. Honestly, I don't see a single thing about windows 8 that's worth paying 2 cents to upgrade, much less $30. I had tried the Beta a while ago, and wasn't that impressed. I got in on the $15 about a month ago and did it basically to see if they added anything worthwhile after the beta - they didn't. Honestly, I wouldn't do an upgrade from if it were free at this point. If you haven't tried it, you aren't missing a thing.

I have been living computers in my life for many years, and I agree with all that is me. Microsoft produces a garbage desktop OS about every other one, and this is the current garbage OS.

Everyone wait for the next OS. If you have a tablet PC, buy Windows 8. If you don't, keep Windows 7. That is all. It is the most annoying fanboi OS I have ever seen for someone who uses a mouse or touchpad to navigate. It would be cool if I had a tablet PC, but not with a desktop or laptop PC. Why should we have to swoosh in random corners of the screen to get the Start Menu? What the hell was wrong with the Start Menu, Applications, or anything else? It took me a few minutes to even find the Control Panel. That is worse than Mac OS X could ever dream of being. It is not a coincidence that every distribution of Linux to ever exist in the past 15 years uses a "Start Menu" in the lower left corner.

WOW

HappyScrappyHeroPup

Thrifty Member

posted: Jan. 28, 2013 @ 1:49a

Windows 98 was fine. It was basically Windows 98 with USB support, which was nice. ME was unspeakably awful.

Windows 2000 worked well, but few games ran on it. It was a workstation OS in a time when game developers weren't ready for it yet. Many peripherals didn't have drivers either.

I know I have to get Windows 8 at some point because I'll be getting a Haswell PC. But I loathe the replacement of the start menu. Basically, Windows 7 has a better UI if you have a mouse and keyboard than Windows 8 does.

HappyScrappyHeroPup said: Basically, Windows 7 has a better UI if you have a mouse and keyboard than Windows 8 does.

Um, Windows 8 with something like Start8 (or one of the many other "Start Menu Replacements") looks, feels, and functions EXACTLY like Windows 7. Faster & more fluid as well. I would challenge you to tell the difference merely looking at the desktop if you did not know.

There's so much misinformation about Windows 8 spreading it isn't even funny. The idea that you "MUST" make a switch to "METRO" is the biggest and dumbest of them all. You don't even need to see Metro let alone use it if you do not desire.

hasu

Addicted Member

posted: Jan. 28, 2013 @ 2:33p

Does Window 8 Media Center support Blu-Ray disc playback?

drodge

Norton's Ghost

posted: Jan. 28, 2013 @ 5:23p

zoid99 said: rigor said: #1 - ClassicMenu from sourceforge - install it and the only choice you need to make is "bypass metro" or not. If you bypass metro, you have windows 7 startup.

Trying to look this up. I found Classic Shell. Is this what you are referring to?

Makes is MUCH more useable. It's still a hassle to do some things, but 100% better.

ngineer

New Member

posted: Jan. 28, 2013 @ 8:08p

meggacat said: I am perfectly happy on XP.....is there something wrong with me???

You are delaying making a decision. You have a little over a year to go before no more updates to fix security issues unless you want to run it offline.

kenbenobi

Senior Member

posted: Jan. 28, 2013 @ 8:47p

I was able to upgrade my laptop to Win8 Pro for $15 (since I recently bought a new desktop PC, even though it had Win8 on it already). It was worth every penny. I LOVE Windows 8 in comparison to what I had. But I was running Vista. It isn't worth upgrading Win7 to 8, but it is totally worth upgrading Vista.

jnheinz

Senior Member - 1K

posted: Jan. 28, 2013 @ 9:40p

nwrain said: No matter what anyone here says about Windows 8 users are rejecting it. Use has already fallen below Vista's at the same point in its life cycle and Vista first went on sale in late January, missing Black Friday and the holiday season. In addition Vista's initial price was much higher than W8. If MS can't turn things around quickly Windows 8 will make Vista look like a roaring success. Assuming Microsoft can put aside their legendary arrogance they'll quickly release an update or service pack that fixes many of the problems. More likely they'll do nothing we'll soon see a marketing campaign for Windows 9.

You are delaying making a decision. You have a little over a year to go before no more updates to fix security issues unless you want to run it offline.

Or you run it with vulnerabilities, online. This is no different than running Windows 7 and forgetting to do updates.

vsnrk

Member

posted: Feb. 2, 2013 @ 10:31a

luckybob04 said: vsnrk said: Microsoft - 39.99 + tax - 4% CB(from fatwallet)I don't believe you can purchase it directly through the Microsoft Store. You have to buy it through a special installer that Microsoft makes you download. Unless I'm missing something, that means no CB.I did not try purchasing from Microsoft store. I agree with you there may be no possibility of CB for this.

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